Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the method of using an apparatus, a bar which is a beam to lash cargo to, herein called the cargo lash to bar, for fastening and restraining cargo to a transport vessel or vehicle, especially as used in lashing down mobile equipment to the deck of an intermodal cargo carrying roll-on/roll-off ocean going ship known as a RoRo, or for fastening to a tanker ship""s weather deck.
2. Description of the Related Art
The transportation of cargo is increasingly geared to intermodal and unitized handling. Most ships are equipped for intermodal shipping that consists primarily of freight containers that are eight feet high, eight feet wide, and twenty feet long. This standard is referred to as a TEU or twenty foot equivalent unit and is particularly evident in the international ISO 668 specification. Many variety of containers, and flatracks have been developed for transport of lumber and liquid tanks, and are just two examples of intermodal freight handling equipment that maintain the TEU although height of specialty containers frequently varies. The intermodal nature of freight containers makes them readily usable without adaptation or modification for transport over sea, over land by trucking, or by rail. Mobile equipment and other break bulk cargo are frequently transported on vessels designed to carry intermodal cargo.
Currently when an armored tank or other irregular shaped mobile equipment is loaded on the deck of a ship which is designed for a variety of cargo including intermodal freight containers, the mobile equipment will be chained down and connected to a socket in the deck. Current cargo restraint lashing rigging consists of D-rings welded to a ship""s deck and D-rings welded to twist lock bases, breech bases, clover leaf bases, dovetail bases or other commercially available or proprietary locking mounting bases for mounting a lashing line to corresponding deck sockets. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,457,650 and 3,860,209 illustrate the styles of fastening rings, cavities, and sockets and the various bases types which are used to fasten to a ship""s deck. All of these embodiments suffer from the same problem, that they mount and seat into the sockets built into the deck that are spaced too far apart for convenient, safe, and secure
Spacing of these sockets is usually substantially twenty feet (or forty feet) apart fore and aft and two adjacent eight feet across athwartship in a configuration reciprocal to the mounting of an intermodal freight container. As a result the cargomen who are stevedores, longshoremen, and ship""s crew are frequently faced with the problem on the ship of inadequate tie down locations adjacent to the designated fastening points of most mobile equipment. The result is multiple chains being stretched at odd angles to reach a single mounting location on the deck. This aggravates the problems of lashing and can lead to lashing gear, D-ring, or deck sockets and bases breaking or tearing with the equipment dangerously coming loose at sea. Often the twist lock sockets or D-rings are covered by cargo or wheels or tracks of a piece of mobile equipment, which must be accommodated by lashing to a farther point and putting extra shear load on a neighboring D-ring or omitting a lashing entirely.
In some locations on ships, D-rings are welded to a ship""s deck generating different problems. Welding to the deck is a permanent attachment which can be an encumbrance later on and be an obstruction for man and machines that causes a safety hazard. Also, dragging a welder and all of it""s equipment around a ship""s deck to weld down and retrofit individual D-rings or repair broken D-rings is slow and labor intensive. Welding is a severe optical hazard to ship""s crew about the deck. Welding also heats the metal of the deck in excess of 3,000 degrees F., which causes localized changes in the crystal structure of the base metal making it brittle and reducing the strength. A ship""s deck cannot be readily annealed. Weld on D-rings are not able to be welded to the lower deck of most ships because the bottom side of the lower deck is the fuel hold or fuel tank. To weld to the lower deck requires the costly procedure of evacuating the space with an inert gas or risking major fire or explosion.
The erectable secondary deck shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,329,935 of Jonasson using twist locks and taking advantage of the regular spacing of twist lock mounting apertures in the deck of a ship displays the practicality of the present invention to take advantage of the same regularly ordered twist lock socket apertures.
Folding flatracks of the type shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,398,832 of Clive-Smith reveal the great need for versatile lashing of cargo so that cargo will securely endure a voyage aboard a waterborne vessel. Clive-Smith discloses an improved flatrack with d-rings for lashing cargo to keep a load fastened to the flatrack wherein the lashing chain begins, ends, and is brought taught by a binder as an internal force to the flatrack. That is to say that cargo native to the flatrack is held fast to the flatrack. The present invention on the other hand provides a new cargo lashing apparatus for lashing cargo to which has a completely different mode of functionality from Clive-Smith, wherein an external force is applied to the apparatus of the present invention and an object external to the cargo lash to bar is restrained to the deck of a ship. Clive-Smith is beneficial to the understanding of the great difficulty in facilitating the safe and secure arrival of cargo aboard the modern intermodal ships. These are new solutions to the broad array of challenges that shippers face in these days of intermodal cargo movement.
The versatility of the twist lock sockets apertures at their respective regular spacing as an erection attachment point is further evidenced by the novel portable hand rail of Bel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,153. As with the previous citation, the preponderance of examples show that the deck sockets can be utilized far beyond simple freight containers. All these however fail to grasp the enormity of the advantage to be gained in cargo fastening, restraining, and securing of the present invention.
People in the mobile equipment shipping industry are clear, there is a lot of money being spent shoreside for load preplanning and logistical processes to make efficient stowage but when mobile equipment cargo arrives onboard the ship it is not loaded according to the plan because of the impediments of the use of old style lashing gear exacerbating the problems of inadequate deck tie down lashing points. That serious difficulty of consistent, safe, and secure lashing of mobile equipment cargo is clearly enunciated in U.S. MTMCTEA Ref 97-55-22 Marine Lifting and Lashing Handbook on page 1-1, which says, xe2x80x9cAs we saw during Desert Shield/Storm, this often leads to inconsistent and excessive lashing procedures that wastes time, money, and manpower hoursxe2x80x9d.
The cargo lash to bar is a beam which is a continuous structural member that can be fastened and unfastened to a ship""s deck and quickly handled aboard a ship to facilitate multiple convenient and accessible lashing point apertures along the length of the span of the member to ensure secure cargo lashing and restraining especially of irregular shaped loads. The key to the application of the present invention is the use of standard twist lock bolt connections. Such twist locks are commercially available in a variety of mounting base configurations. The cargo lash to bar is constructed to use a standard twist lock rotating locking bolt connections at each end of the bar for releasable locking to its mounting locking surface. These twist locks are an integral part of a RoRo ship""s current inventory of lashing gear. The cargo lash to bar comes with the mounting apertures in its mounting locking surface on the bottom, that receive the twist lock body and rotating locking bolt.
The result is a versatile new piece of cargo lashing gear. Accordingly, several objects and advantages of the present invention are: a) the primary object of the cargo lash to bar invention is to provide to ships and other cargo transport vehicles or handlers a device that speeds up the loading and deployment of irregular shaped cargo and mobile equipment by aiding their task of securing a load by providing a structural member to attach to with lashing aperture locations heretofore unavailable along the entire length between typical deck mounting sockets, b) a further advantage to the use of the cargo lash to bar is that more D-rings and aperture holes for lashing makes for less overloaded rings which provides security from losing multiple pieces of mobile equipment at sea adding a safety benefit to the crew tasked with resecuring a loose load, c) a further advantage of the lash to bar is that if the lashings break loose on a piece of mobile equipment cargo by fraying or other means, the beam will act as dunnage to restrict movement reducing potential damage to a ship and adjacent cargo, d) a further advantage of the cargo lash to bar is the extensive use of D-rings which have a smooth contoured surface that can be used with chains, cable, hemp rope, or especially light weight and high strength nylon and kevlar synthetic fibrous straps or webbing, e) a further advantage to the use of the cargo lash to bar is that it allows the stevedores to make a more systematic approach to the deck location of mobile equipment and actually position equipment according to the shoreside prestowage plan, f) a further advantage is the simplification of load positioning for consistent repeatable lashing of mobile equipment, g) a further advantage is reclamation of deck space previously occupied by flailed lashings allowing a ship to carry more cargo, h) a further advantage to the use of the cargo lash to bar when it lays fore to aft across the twenty foot span of a ships deck spanning deck fastening twist lock sockets, mobile equipment can readily be loaded in between a pair of cargo lash to bars like driving a car into a stall in a striped asphalt parking lot since most mobile equipment is loaded on a RoRo fore and aft in the same orientation as a container, i) a further object of the cargo lash to bar is to provide a new means to assist the ordinary lashing of standard containers attached one on top of another by placing a cargo lash to bar under the end of a bottom container to lash the upper containers freeing up the valuable deck space which previously required using heavy and cumbersome lashing bars and associated lashing gear, j) a further advantage is to remove the hazard of welding on a ship""s deck and facilitate welding repairs at a safe location, even by off-ship contractors, k) a further advantage is the ability to use the cargo lash to bar as a safe article on which to weld fasteners for restraining irregular cargo to the lower deck of a ship immediately above a fuel tank or a fuel soaked wooden deck, l) a further advantage of the cargo lash to bar is use as a shoring beam by itself or with multiple lash to bars stacked on top of the other, m) a further advantage of the cargo lash to bar is to use a pair of the apparatus for supporting or securing cargo above a clear span over a hatch or damaged portion of a ships deck, n) a further advantage is the ability to deploy a pair of cargo lash to bars to utilize space on top of a container, or stack of containers, or stowage flat rack even while the container is being drawn by a semi truck, or rail car, o) a further object of the cargo lash to bar is a lashing apparatus that can be readily stacked one on top of another for unitized storage when this is a desirable feature, p) a further object of the cargo lash to bar is a member that can be manipulated and moved securely and quickly by a fork lift truck, q) a further advantage of the lash to bar is the ability to keep mobile equipment cargo separated far enough apart for a person to walk between the mobile cargo especially during the stevedoring loading process to allow access from front to back of a ship to tend to cargo while a ship is at sea to access the distant areas of a loaded cargo hold in case of medical emergency or fire.
Further objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuing description.